(Newser)
–
When the families of 9/11 victims decided to sue Saudi Arabia, Zacarias Moussaoui wanted to testify. In October, a team of lawyers interviewed the so-called "20th hijacker" from the Colorado supermax prison where he's serving a life sentence. What he had to say was shocking: He alleges that not only did Saudi Arabia's royal family fund al-Qaeda in the late 1990s, he says he discussed a plan to shoot down Air Force One with an official from the Saudi embassy in Washington, the New York Times reports. In some 100 pages of testimony, filed in federal court in New York on Monday, Moussaoui also describes meeting with Crown Prince Salman—now King Salman—and delivering letters from Osama bin Laden. CNN reports he was not cross-examined.

Moussaoui says he was to go to Washington with the official of the embassy's Islamic Affairs Department to scope out a spot "suitable to launch a Stinger attack and then, after, be able to escape." He was arrested before the scouting mission. The Saudi embassy says the Sept. 11 commission found no evidence that Saudi officials directly funded al-Qaeda, calling Moussaoui "a deranged criminal whose own lawyers presented evidence that he was mentally incompetent." However, the Times notes Moussaoui "comes across as calm and largely coherent" and was found competent to stand trial in 2005. Former Sen. Bob Graham, who has talked of a coverup, writes he is "convinced" of Saudi Arabia's ties to the 9/11 attacks in an affidavit filed Monday.

9/11 Link To Saudi Arabia Is Topic Of 28 Redacted Pages In Government Report; Congressmen Push For Release By Jamie Reno on December 09 2013 2:09 PM http://www.ibtimes.com/911-link-saudi-arabia-topic-28-redacted-pages-government-report-congressmen-push-release-1501202 President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood A pair of lawmakers who recently read the redacted portion say they are “absolutely shocked” at the level of foreign state involvement in the attacks. http://nypost.com/2013/12/15/inside-the-saudi-911-coverup/ The U.S. government’s cover-up of a Saudi connection in the 9/11 terrorist attacks is receiving new attention because a pair of legislators—one Republican, one Democrat—recently viewed a redacted chunk of a congressional report that confirms foreign state involvement in the plot. Americans have been told that Al Qaeda acted alone on September 11, 2001 and that there were no state sponsors. In fact, the George W. Bush administration blacked out dozens of pages of a congressional investigative report on 9/11 that dealt with specific sources of foreign support for the 19 hijackers, most of whom were Saudi nationals. http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2013/12/u-s-cover-up-of-saudi-911-ties-probed-jw-has-secret-flight-docs/

snowleopard_nw

Feb 4, 2015 2:50 PM CST

"US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in December 2009 in a cable released by Wikileaks that 'Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qa'ida, the Taliban, LeT [Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan] and other terrorist groups.'" ... "Western governments traditionally play down the connection between Saudi Arabia and its Wahhabist faith, on the one hand, and jihadism, whether of the variety espoused by Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida or by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's Isis. There is nothing conspiratorial or secret about these links: 15 out of 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, as was Bin Laden and most of the private donors who funded the operation." http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/iraq-crisis-how-saudi-arabia-helped-isis-take-over-the-north-of-the-country-9602312.html